April 2, 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
COCONUT PLANTING IN CEYLON: 
REVIICW OF THE PAST TWHIjVI' .MONTHS* EXPERIENCE 
IN THE WESTERN PROVINCE. 
THE FIRST THREE QUARTERS. 
We paid the penalty of the drouyht that extended 
from the middle of Dec. 1880 to the middle of 
April Lb87, not so much in numerical deficiency 
of nuts as in sine. The June-July gathering 
was of very small nuts and the August-Sept, 
much smaller. Under this dispensation the dealers 
suspended business and the estates had to pre- 
pare the copra for themselves. The outturn ran 
from 1,100 to' 1,700 to the candy, the average being 
about 1,600, or from ,'i00 to 400 over the usual 
rate. At the same time the price of copra fell 
3 to 4 rupees per candy, and as the next three 
gatherings were expected to be scanty, it was thought 
to be a rather bad time for coconut planters. 
Some of the most intelligent of the owners of coconut 
property are beginning to employ their minds on the 
question of whether we are about to overdo coconuts as 
has been done with cinnamon and cinchona. It 
is being asked if the fall in the price of oopra 
is likely to be permanent or the mere annual de- 
cline that regularly takes place between May and 
November. In that half of the year two-thirds 
sometimes three- fourths of the annual crop is 
gathered, and the large supply tells on the prices 
which invariably go up in December and the 
best prices are obtained when the planter has least 
to sell. The supply of coconuts has doubled within 
the last twenty years, and will probably be again 
doubled in the next twenty, and other lands are 
beginning to compete. The Yankees who do every- 
thing on a vast scale are laying down plantations 
of 350,000 plants in a single concern ; but I do 
not fear much from Florida. The coconut is 
essentially a tropical plant, that disappears in 
our own landscape, within eight degrees of the 
equator, at under 2,000 feet of elevation ; the south 
point of Florida, is about two degrees outside the 
tropics and not far from the line whero frost 
occasionally manifests itself ; it seems therefore 
probablo that Florida will bo a failure, but the 
West Indian Islands are being roused to a sense 
of their advantages for this cultivation, and they 
tind a ready market close at hand in the United 
States, so that they will not within this current 
century interfere with our market. Year by year 
ooconut oil is gotting into moro favour for soap 
making. In 188(5, in addition to one of the 
largest exports of oil on record, the equivalent of 
12 per cont more was exported in copra besides 
nearly 10,000,000 of nuts. In 1887, the export 
was 300,000 cwt. of oil and Li millions of nuts. The 
■apply is probably in exoess of the demand for the 
tune being, but the supply of the present commercial 
year will be at l.-u t 25 per cent less than that 
luti'ly olosed, so that low prioes are not likely to 
rule throughout the year. 
Whether oonsui option will increase proportionately 
to the increased supply is a question thai only 
time can decide, but the future may be looked to 
in hope, if not oonlldonoe. Civilized humanity is 
multiplying at tho rate of three or four millions 
annually, and though much of the increase must 
belong to the class of the great unwnshod, the 
consumption of soap must go on increasing by 
many millions of pounds annually. It would 
appear, that, besides this outlet, the use of cooo- 
nuts in domestio economy, both in America and 
Europe, is advancing, and human ingenuity is over 
finding frosh uaos for such products. I therefore 
think tha 1 ; the outlook is not a specially gloomy 
one, especially as Ceylon has the lead of all other 
lands in having twenty and odd millions of trees 
that cost but little for upkeep, and can continue 
to feed the markets with a profit at the lowest 
prices ever like.y to be reached.* 
I have already recorded my dissent from the 
theory, that phosphate of lime acts as a stimulant 
on the ooconut tree. My understanding of a stimu- 
lant is a pubstanco that without imparting fresh 
strength pro° uces the e-ffocts of strength in tho 
being it operat' s on, by temporarily drawing on tho 
latent strength of the individual. All vegetable 
tissues are a combination of ci-rtain elements, in 
de finite proportio ns always the same in every in. 
dividual of the sam'? species. However rich the 
soil it oooupies may be in one or more of the 
elements it combines in its substance, a plant takes 
up no more than the due proportion its specific 
constitution lequires to complete its tissues. Thus 
if you place a i ushel of bone dust within reach of 
the roots of a coconut tree, it will take up exactly as 
much and no more than is necessary in its specific 
combination. Phosphate, is therefore not a stimulant 
to the coconut tree, but an indispensable element 
to healthy fru tfulnrss. If reaction takes place, it 
indicates the exhaustion of some one or moro of the 
equally necessary eliments, and reaction may take 
place while an abundant supply of phosphate re- 
mains in the soil. According to my experience 
the earliest tree is the best and other things 
being equal continues the best throughout. A 
practical Welsh gardent r told someone, years ago, 
that the fibrous roots round the stem of a tree 
supply it with fruit-forming materials, while the 
larger roots, which spread further away, supply 
materials for the formation of wood and leaf. 
Had a Welsh gardener, or any other presumptuous 
ignoramus, advanced such preposterous nonsense 
in my presence, I would have told him what he 
was on the spot. I deny that there is any difference 
in the functions of roots, and I maintain that the 
most active foraging roots are near the extremities 
of the mains. 
Xutc.—l do not know the proportion of oil 
obtained from copra in the great manufactories ; 
but I wrought chekkus for a dozen years, and 
always got three gallons of oil from 45 lb. At 9 lb. 
3 oz. to tho gallon this is 271b. i) oz. or 01-8 per 
cent. I cannot believe that the chekku can extract 
more oil from tho same copra than the 
hydraulic pross, from thoroughly ground material; 
but the chekku will only operate satisfactorily 
on copra as dry as sun or lire heat can make 
it. If then a recent statement as to tho 
outturn of tho mills bo correct, it indicates tho 
averago of superfluous moisture in commercial 
copra to be 8*6 per cont supposing the chekku and 
mill machinery to be eqiully effoctive. 
* Our estimate in last "Handbook and Directory'' was 
us IoiIhw.n — " The calculation up to lsiVJ w i ■ tint there, 
were 250,000 acros of coconut palms (belonging to native* 
and in Kuropean-owucd plantations) in Ceylon, covered 
with twenty million full-grown trees, but considering 
tho cxtcoMOu of planting chiefly by natives in the 
last tweuty-flve years We feel bound to raise tho num- 
ber of trees to about forty millions coveriug omi.i'OO 
ncrcs of w I ue! i all but about 30,00'' acres are owned 
by natives. There is scarcely a native land-owner or 
cultivator in the country who do 's not own a garden 
of pilnis, eolfee or other fruit trees, or vegetables 
Ue»iilos bis paddy-field. Our estimate is still fir be- 
low the figures given in the Government Blua Hook 
for 1881, which, however, we evinot help thinking 
exaggerated u regards acreage.'' Our conclusion 
seems to be justified by the Oallo figures lincv pub. 
lished by Mr.' Elliott.— Eu. 
